‘How I Lost 85 Pounds of Baby Weight by Hula-Hooping’

This article was written by Cori Magnotta as told to Sarah Klein and provided by our partners atPrevention.

Before: 250 lbs

After: 165 lbs

Cori Magnotta, 32, couldn't stick with a workout routine. But when she faced stubborn extra pounds after the birth of her son, she decided it was time to make a change. She lost 85 pounds in a year doing an exercise she loved: Hula-Hooping.

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When I was 5, Hula-Hooping was my party trick. I was really good at it. As I got older, I Hula-Hooped less and less and eventually joined the real world, put the hoop aside, and forgot about it.

I'm six-feet tall, and I've always struggled with my weight. I just didn't find working out fun. I would join a gym, go once, and never go back. When I was pregnant with my son, I developed preeclampsia, or high blood pressure, and had to be on bedrest for two months. Being sedentary contributed to my weight gain during my pregnancy. At my heaviest, I was 265 pounds. My son was a big baby—10 pounds!—so I attribute some of that to him. But I struggled with getting the rest of it back off. I developed hypothyroidism after my pregnancy, and my metabolism had slowed, making it easier to gain weight and that much more difficult to lose it. (Get a flat belly in just 10 minutes a day with our reader-tested exercise plan!)

In October 2014, I was down to 250 pounds, and I started searching the internet for fun workouts. I came across FXP Fitness, which uses a weighted Hula-Hoop in a routine that borrows from barre, yoga, and pilates. I remembered how much I loved hooping as a kid and signed up for a class. I drove from my home in Portland, Connecticut, to Massachusetts, the only place classes were available at the time. I remember thinking, "Let me go see what this is all about."

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I immediately loved it. It's impossible to not smile while Hula-Hooping. I wore a fitness tracker and a heart-rate monitor and watched my heart rate spike like I was doing a high-intensity interval training workout. I could burn as much as 800 calories in an hour doing the class's combination of ballet movements, yoga poses, strength exercises like squats, and of course traditional waist hooping. We even hooped around our arms and our hands to give our waists a break. We used the weighted hoop to do stretches and hooped while we did dance routines like the YMCA and the Macarena.

I took the two-pound hoop home with me to Connecticut and started hooping on my own. I started with just 10 minutes a day and built up my stamina. It was easy to stand in front of the TV and whip it around my waist, even if I had toys all over my living room floor from my son. It didn't take me long to decide that I wanted to become an instructor myself. I decided to go to Boston to get certified.

Hooping helped me slowly and steadily lose weight. In about a year, I was down 85 pounds and weighed 165. It helped that I now have a 2-year-old I have to chase everywhere! Once you start exercising, there's a snowball effect: You have more energy to do more things, like cook instead of going to the drive-thru and play with my son instead of watching him at the playground. Now, I teach hooping three times a week.

I competed in pageants when I was young, and 20 years later, I gave it another shot. I was recently crowned America's Fit Mrs., and I Hula-Hooped as my talent. I was even recently featured as Trainer of the Month with FXP Hoop Fitness. If you told me two years ago I would be a fitness instructor, I would have laughed at you.

The most important thing is that it's fun. Most people crack up when I tell them I'm a Hula-Hoop instructor and tell me they can't hoop. But I have yet to meet someone I can't teach to hoop! I have 21-year-olds and 65-year-olds in my class, petite people and tall people, couch potatoes and marathoners—it's for anyone and everyone.

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